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Did " God" have a female Partner ? Yahweh and his consort Asherah !!!!!

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posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 03:47 PM
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Why the BBC's new face of religion believes God had a WIFE...



Source:www.dailymail.co.uk...

How many of you heard of Asherah?




Despite numerous references to Asherah worship in the Bible, there wasn't enough evidence to link her explicitly with the high god of ancient Israel, Yahweh. Until, that is, the discovery of a remarkable ceramic inscription in the Sinai desert. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk...





The inscription was photographed and recorded by archaeologists and scholars of ancient Israelite religion, so we know what it looked like - and importantly - what it said. Dating to about the 8th Century BC, it was found at a remote site called Kuntillet 'Ajrud, and was written on a large piece of a broken pottery. Its writer was probably a traveller or a merchant, moving between the towns of ancient Israel. For any traveller, a journey was dangerous, so divine protection was important. The inscription is a petition for a blessing. Crucially, the inscription asks for a blessing from 'Yahweh and his Asherah'. Here was evidence that presented Yahweh and Asherah as a divine pair. And now a handful of similar inscriptions have since been found, all of which help to strengthen the case that the God of the Bible once had a wife. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk...


To read more follow the Source Link.



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 03:49 PM
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the plot thickens...
let's see the pope explain this one haha



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 03:52 PM
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reply to post by lisa2012
 


Fascinating, S+F for you!

Maybey having a wife can explain all the anger that YHWH unleashed so needlessly...I wouldn't be happy with a nag that kept at it for thousands of years...



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 03:55 PM
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Very awesome find.

I'd be interested to hear more about it... or rather, to hear more about what Hebrew scholars and Jewish theologians think about it.

If I wasn't on spring break, I would totally print out all the information I can find and bring it in to my "Genesis" professor. It would definitely make for an interesting class discussion.

After all, as a layman, I have no idea whether it's genuine or not. And I have no idea what it actually means to have found this piece of ceramic. And since I can't just believe what I'm told... I'd feel the need to investigate it for myself.

If I remember in a week, I'll probably have more information in order to judge the legitimacy of this discovery and what it means for Biblical history.



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 03:55 PM
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For milenia people have always used "him" when they explain God...

Why shouldn't "he" have a counterpart...Ying&Yang?

Why do we need God to have a gender?

It all comes back to that old man in a white robe sitting in the clouds, waiting to spike i lightning bolt at you if you sin...

edit on 6-3-2011 by Akragon because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 04:01 PM
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The fertility cult that preceded Judiasm, or the Proto-Judaics if you will, made ritual sacrifices of semen to this goddess at a cave (representative of the womb of the Earth) somewhere that I can't recall off the top of my head and my books are upstairs...but the whole business of which is well outlined in John Allegro's 'Chosen People'. A much disputed documentation though...very little grounds in those disputes. It seems to really upset everyone to suggest that the Jews once held ceremonial circle wanks.
edit on 6-3-2011 by KilgoreTrout because: reducing qualifyers



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 04:02 PM
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Doesn't the creation story refer to the making of man in "our" image??? This would clarify that plural usage.
Interesting stuff. What else have we forgotten?



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 04:02 PM
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This is widely know in the world of wicca and other forms of witchcraft i remember finding out about asherah in an old enochian book years and years ago i actualy wrote a poem about her..great find.



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 04:05 PM
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Why "did have"

why not "does have"

does this imply that either or both are dead!?

Or is is merely a recognition of God in the original pagan form, so the did have denotes he cannot claim sole divinty anymore, as the wife is back! and really he is the consort!

Every man knows he is the king of his castle and has his wife's permission to say so!!



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 04:08 PM
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Quite interesting OP. It would seem that YHWH was not so thrilled with Asherah. At least from bible verses:


Jer 7:18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.



Jer 44:18 But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.



Jer 44:21 The incense that ye burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, ye, and your fathers, your kings, and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the LORD remember them, and came it not into his mind? Jer 44:22 So that the LORD could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which ye have committed; therefore is your land a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without an inhabitant, as at this day. Jer 44:23 Because ye have burned incense, and because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil is happened unto you, as at this day.


If she was his wife. Worship of her was definitely not permitted. See Jeremiah chapters 7 and 44 to read more.

S&F OP.



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 04:11 PM
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I wonder if people 3000 years from now are going to come dig up some notebook of a psycho that said glowing gerbils were following him and they write up a news article for the public saying "Evidence of glowing gerbils found"?

Seriously, Asherah is too close an IDOL to Astarte and Ishtar. If anything thing the Holy Spirit would be the Yin to Gods Yang. That is if god is not the Yin to his own Yang. I do not look at God as having a gender, I also do not see the necessity of a wife for God, you know, him being God and all.

If I was Lucifer, and I was cast out of heaven and I knew God as much as Lucifer did, I would start to sabotage his plans right away. I would make preparations before the creation of man and I would strike the first opportunity I had once man was created. And I would have an edge over everything that has to do with God because I would know what he planned to do and his methods of carrying things out.
edit on 6-3-2011 by molecularstranding because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 04:11 PM
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Originally posted by Tinman67
Doesn't the creation story refer to the making of man in "our" image??? This would clarify that plural usage.
Interesting stuff. What else have we forgotten?


The "our" that God is referring to is the high council. The two creation accounts, in Genesis 1 and 2, were inspired by other creation accounts: Babylonian, Akkadian, Sumerian, etc. The god El that is referred to in these other middle eastern creation accounts is the Jewish God Yahweh. The god El is the head of a council of gods, so when Genesis was written, Yahweh was also considered to be the head of the gods.

After all, the Canaanites of the time did acknowledge the divinity of the neighboring gods. They just believed that their god was better.

So yeah, in conclusion... the "our" in Genesis, is referring to God and his counsel which consists of other gods.



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 04:13 PM
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To be honest I never heard of this Asherah before and I found this version of the story quite interesting. I would be interested to hear if other people came across this subject and in what context.

This Documentary that will be on BBC2 9pm England time I assume and it is called "Bible's Buried Secrets" if someone would be able to record parts or all of it and post it on Youtube or google videos would be great.



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 04:18 PM
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Well let's see.In the old testament god is angry, vengeful,and sometimes just plain mean.In the new testament he is forgiving and understanding.Sounds like there was a divorce in there some where.



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 04:19 PM
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Here we are...(had to nip to the toilet, turns out it was downstairs anyway...)


If all Israel sprang from the loins of Abraham, then even the heterogeneous collection of people left in Judah could look back in their imagination beyond a loose confederation of twelve tribes to a single progenitor, and pride themselves on a purity of race unmatched in the whole of Palestine. They were a single family, chosen by their god whilst wandering in the desert, and brought together into the Promised Land. Above all, they were different from their Palestinian neighbours. Their god was not Ba'al, and those features of their traditional religion like sacred prostitution, prostration before the erect phallic images of the Asherah, worship of the mother goddess Ashtoreth, and dedication of human semen at the mouth of the vaginal passage to the earth's womb, the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem, had all to be banished, no matter how reluctantly.


Page 31, The Chosen People, by John M Allegro, 1971.

Allegro, incidently, in case it is not generally known, was one of the Dead Sea Scroll scholars.



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 04:20 PM
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"

Take a step back to look at the historical background. The Jewish faith emerged out of Canaanite beliefs, which both predate and are contemporary with the Bible. The Canaanites, whose primary city was Ugarit (now Ras Sharma in modern Syria), had many deities. First came El, the Most High and the father of the gods; his many children included Yahweh, Asherah (Athirat - the fertility goddess) and Baal.


As in any pantheon (group of gods), there were rivalries and alliances, as each deity sought worshippers and demanded their own methods of worship. Some of these events are recorded in the Bible, others (such as the suggestion by some historians that Yahweh and Asherah were married) come from other records.

Asherah was represented by large phallic symbols (mistranslated as "trees" or "groves" in some early versions of the Bible); Asherah "poles" crop up several times in the Old Testament, usually when Yahweh is ordering their destruction. Baal demanded a sacrifice of a calf from his followers, as described in several Biblical passages. "

Source for the quote :www.godwouldbeanatheist.com...

Image of Asherah 13BC Image of Asherah of Ugarit




Photo Source :www.godwouldbeanatheist.com...



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 04:22 PM
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reply to post by lisa2012
 


Ill see if i can get us a copy of that show. Should be able to snag a torrent from somewhere and host the AVI on my server.

edit on 6-3-2011 by cabuki because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 04:23 PM
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Accordingly with Encyclopedia Britannica




Asherah, Asherah, detail from an ivory box from Mīnat al-Bayḍāʾ near Ras Shamra … [Credit: Giraudon/Art Resource, New York]ancient West Semitic goddess, consort of the supreme god. Her principal epithet was probably “She Who Walks on the Sea.” She was occasionally called Elath (Elat), “the Goddess,” and may have also been called Qudshu, “Holiness.” According to texts from Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra, Syria), Asherah’s consort was El, and by him she was the mother of 70 gods. As mother goddess she was widely worshiped throughout Syria and Palestine, although she was frequently paired with Baal, who often took the place of El; as Baal’s consort, Asherah was usually given the name Baalat. Inscriptions from two locations in southern Palestine seem to indicate that she was also worshiped as the consort of Yahweh. The word asherah in the Old Testament was used not only in reference to the goddess herself but also to a wooden cult object associated with her worship.



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 04:27 PM
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Asherah was represented by large phallic symbols (mistranslated as "trees" or "groves" in some early versions of the Bible); Asherah "poles" crop up several times in the Old Testament, usually when Yahweh is ordering their destruction.


Excellent Lisa. I believe many of those "mistranslations" were intentional.



posted on Mar, 6 2011 @ 04:29 PM
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reply to post by lisa2012
 


Baal did have a wife named Ashtaroth:

JUDGES 2 :13 And they forsook the LORD, and served BAAL and Ashtaroth.

Baal was a male sun god who many of the canninites worshiped. As for his wife Ashtaroth:

JEREMIAH 7
18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the QUEEN OF HEAVEN, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
JEREMIAH 44
17 But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the QUEEN OF HEAVEN, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.
18 But since we left off to burn incense to the QUEEN OF HEAVEN, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.
19 And when we burned incense to the QUEEN OF HEAVEN, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men?
25 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying; Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and fulfilled with your hand, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the QUEEN OF HEAVEN, and to pour out drink offerings unto her: ye will surely accomplish your vows, and surely perform your vows.

She is the "mary" that the Roman catholics worship as you can clearly see from these verses if you know anything about catholic services.

But to answer your question, yes, the God of the Bible did have a wife. Israel. And the muslims can't stand it.

ISAIAH Chapter 54:5-6 For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. 6 For the LORD hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a WIFE of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God.

BBC is getting their "gods" mixed up. SOP.




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